


The Thing Lacking

by JaneScarlett



Category: Flowers in the Attic - V. C. Andrews
Genre: April Showers 2015, F/M, everyone's got a past, previous relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 12:06:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3850324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneScarlett/pseuds/JaneScarlett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t that he’d never loved anyone else.  It was just that they’d all lacked something he can only find in her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1955: Gladstone, Pennsylvania

**Author's Note:**

> Something about Chris and Cathy always bothered me a little. I think it’s because Cathy’s narration makes Chris sound obsessively creepy-stalker and like she settled for him because everyone else had died. I’d prefer to think that they both had other relationships, and that they made a conscious choice to be together.
> 
> Warnings for mention of incest… not too surprising, considering the original subject matter. But if it offends you, don’t read this fic. Also: I had the idea for this before the Petals movie came out, but the OC they put in actually made me think a bit more about it. I’ve taken a few liberties on location and timing, trying to reconcile book/movie canon.
> 
> Thanks to Natalie for the beta.

Her name is Eleanor Ren, and for their entire 7th grade year, she has been sitting in front of him in English. Only one row up and a seat to the left; she is close and yet far enough away that he can watch her from the corner of his eye while his hands are busy scribbling endless notes. In September he’d been mesmerized first by her dark blond hair in a long braid at the nape of her neck; in October he’d noticed the tilt of her nose and the dimples in her cheeks when she smiled; by January he’d memorized the precise angle at which her eyelashes brushed against the tops of her cheeks. But now it is May and as the end of 7th grade nears, and Christopher thinks -no, he _knows_ \- that he is in love.

“You should talk to her,” his friends urge. They bark sly laughter, make dirty innuendos about the outline of her bra beneath her blouses, and what sort of girl she might be. But he can’t join in their laughter and salacious comments. All he knows is that Eleanor fascinates him, and he doesn’t think that his life will ever be complete if he doesn’t talk to her at least once before the end of the year.

So he does. He waits for her after English until she walks out, flanked by her friends, and stops dead at the sight of him.

“Hello,” he says nervously. “I’m Christopher.”

“Eleanor.” Her voice is soft and sweet and tentative; and she is looking off to the side as though embarrassed. But then her eyes dart up to meet his, and he smiles at her. Instantly her cheeks flush a rosy pink; but she smiles cautiously back.

“I was wondering,” Christopher volunteers, “if I can walk you to class? I’m going to History…?”

“Math,” Eleanor says. “I’ve got Math.”

Inside, he groans. Math classes are on the other side of the building from English and History. There is no way he can walk her to her class and still make it back to his own on time.

Behind them, her friends and his giggle. They distract him; and he stares at Eleanor, wondering for a moment what she is thinking of. If she finds all this as uncomfortable as he does. If she cares that he is talking to her at all.

“Maybe I could walk you home,” he blurts out. “If you wanted?”

She looks away again, shyly. There is something so fragile about her, about this entire moment. His heart is beating too fast as he waits, waits to see if she will say yes.

She doesn’t say a word, but she gives an infinitesimal nod and her cheeks dimple as a smile creeps slowly over her face. Christopher fights the urge to punch the air in triumph, managing only a broad grin in response.

“I’ll see you on the steps at the end of the day,” he says; and she nods again, as though afraid to trust her voice and say anything aloud.

He walks her home five times before the school year ends, and Eleanor is quiet each time. She answers his questions politely but asks little in return, volunteering nothing for herself. She smiles instead of laughing, she is graceful and gentle and refined; and he finds it somehow frustrating. Somehow, he never thought real girls could be like that, outside of the models of old-fashioned femininity in books. His sister is nothing like that, at least. Cathy has always been tactless and outspoken, loud and obnoxious, sometimes too spoilt and selfish to be easily tolerated.

“You’ll be grateful,” Momma has said more than once, “to have a sister, Christopher. Growing up with her will give you a respect for women, will help you to understand them.”

But Momma is wrong in this. It seems that all Cathy has taught him, in respect to Eleanor, is that the girl he walks home is a quiet mystery. She is just as beautiful as he’d thought she was all year, but she has something lacking in her. There is no fire, no passion to her; and he realizes during their last walk in June that she bores him completely and he is not certain he cares to find out more about her.

When 8th grade starts, Eleanor isn’t in any of his classes. He isn’t even sure of when it happens -when he acknowledges that the fascination he’d had for her dried up- but he does realize that he doesn’t even care.


	2. 1960: South Carolina

It is her back he sees first. The lean straight lines, the proud carriage of her head and flaxen hair piled high into a bun. His breath catches in his throat as she turns around and he takes in the wisps of hair curling around her face, the pale creamy skin and clear blue eyes just like… but no. He refuses to think of who she looks like. It is his first day at his college prep school, the first meeting with his new lab partner; and memories of Cathy have no place here.

As he gets closer, he realizes that the similarities to his sister aren’t as pronounced as he’d thought. This girl’s features are wrong. Her face is built of angles: sharp nose, chiseled cheekbones and stubbornly pointed chin. There is no doll-like softness to her at all; and it is only that which makes him lay his ghosts to rest and manage to smile, extending his hand in greeting.

“Jessica Whitfield? Nice to meet you. I’m to be your lab partner; and I’m Christopher D- Sheffield.” He catches himself, stammering over his new surname and hoping she hadn’t noticed.

“D’Sheffield?” she asks. “That’s an interesting name.” Her voice is deadpan, and he finds himself flushing under her scrutiny.

“It’s Sheffield,” he says. “Only Sheffield.”

Her gaze is piercing. “Sounds like you’re not used to that name. Is that really you? Or are you on the run, testing out a new identity?”

She’s not wrong, but of course she can’t know that. Christopher Sheffield, ward of Dr. Paul is a different person to Christopher Dollanganger, son of Chris and Corrinne. He doesn’t feel like either one, completely. His old self is not completely gone, but his new self has not yet proven who he is to become. But he smiles at her, trying to take her jokes in stride.

“Something like that,” Chris says. “But you left out the possibility that I’m a superhero in disguise.”

“A blond superhero? Unlikely.” But she grins as she says that; and his heart lightens at her smile. It is so friendly and open and honest. He could lose himself in a smile like that.

“It’s alright, I won’t ask any more questions,” she promises. “Don’t want to blow your cover. As long,” she holds out her hand, “as you don’t call me Jessica again. It’s Jay.”

“And I’m Chris.” He shakes her hand, feeling the warmth and strength of her long slender fingers against his. “Pleased to meet you.”

She starts as his lab partner, but in due course becomes his all-around study partner, then his friend. She is what he never knew he needed until he was here in this school. Jay is assured and confident and independent; and he realizes that he likes that she seems so self-sufficient on her own, needing nothing from anyone. For so long, it seems, he has been the supporter of his family. He loves his siblings, but he enjoys the freedom he finds here, the freedom from being brother and substitute father. All Jay expects from him is friendship and partnership; they meet as equals, and it because of that, that he learns to trust her.

They have so much in common, it seems. The driving need in both of them for learning; that urge to devour books and assimilate the knowledge into bones and brain and blood. The urge to prove themselves… they support and compete against each other as they go through their pre-med program together.

And, too, she is an orphan. She tells him one night, on edge from too little sleep and too much coffee, about the car crash that killed both her parents when she was thirteen; and she seems unsurprised when he murmurs that it was the same for him. In a way, it was. The accident that ripped his father away completely only provided the first tentative break with his mother; but the outcome was the same.

They are both alone, both having spent their teenaged years raised by a distant, disapproving grandparent. But she has been alone without siblings, which she thinks made her stronger, not needing anyone. Tougher… but still she is soft enough to dissolve into his arms when he kisses away her tears, presses his lips gently to hers before their hands scrabble at each other’s clothes, and limbs entwine when they fall backwards onto his bed.

At home, Cathy is in school and dancing on in her life without him. He thought he would have been more upset, but every morning when he wakes up to Jay’s curled up form in bed besides him, he realizes that he, too, might be capable of moving on. With his sister is the link of the past: the legacy of those attic years in which _survive today_ was only the constant, and _never mind tomorrow_. But Jay has her own demons, and while hers are not of being starved, beaten or locked away, they are similar enough to his that they can empathize with each other. She is like him, but not; and he loves that, he loves that she makes him feel safe and free, as though he is healing. He loves that _she_ feels like the strong one.

Cathy was right. There is more in the world than the two of them, and now he thinks that maybe, he can find it.

But he doesn't think of what she feels. That maybe Jay, scarred like him, strong and determined and utterly independent wants something else. She tells him late one night that she will move to New York after graduation. She's been offered a place at Columbia; and her nonchalance rips him to pieces.

“Did you even think of me?” he asks bitterly, looking at her profile in the soft lamplight. She is lying beside him in bed, staring up at the ceiling as though she is alone. As if she hadn’t just delivered devastating news. “Did you think of us, Jay?”

“Columbia would be happy to take you too, Chris. Your grades! But you didn’t even apply.”

“I can’t leave. I’ve told you that. My sisters… we’re close. I can’t just leave them behind.”

“Well,” Jay says, “I don’t have family to think about. Only me.”

“Us.” He reaches for her hand, but it feels lifeless in his grasp. “ _Us_. I thought that we…”

She looks at him then, blue eyes bright and curious. “Did you think we’d be forever, Chris? You and me?”

“We could have tried!” He is angry and he doesn’t know why. If he squints, ignores the dissimilar features, if he just looks at their surface coloring she seems so like... but _no_. He refuses to think of Cathy and the night before he’d left, what felt like rejection from the only woman he could trust.

Since then, he’d learned to trust Jay. To love her. But now she, too, was leaving; she, too, was another woman who didn’t really need him.

Jay shrugs, sitting up. The sheets fall away and he reaches one hand out to curve around her waist, draw her back down to him; but she moves away. It is undeniably an innocent movement, but something about that stings him as badly as though she’d slapped him.

“I’ve plans for my life,” she says. “So have you.”

“But I thought we could make plans, together.”

“You’d hold me back.” There is no bitterness in her voice, only honesty. “I don’t need a boyfriend who has so many ties to home and family. The thing is,” she tilted her head to the side, “you don’t understand like I do about being alone.”

“And you,” he shot back, “don’t know what it’s like to have people you love. Who you’re so close to, you’d die for them.”

She laughs, the sound light but bitter. “No,” she says, “I wouldn’t. My parents dead, raised by my dear Nana, who never could stand me.” She strokes the side of his face, fingers cool against his cheek.

“It’s fine you don’t feel like that, Chris. Maybe I even envy that you have people you love so much? But you know that it’s not the same for me, it never could be. I won’t let myself be devastated again, if someone doesn’t stay or come home for me. 

“And even if I love you, I’m not fooled. For my own happiness, there is no one to depend upon but myself.”

He wonders if there is anything he can say to change her mind as Jay dresses in silence, letting herself out of his apartment with only a murmured goodbye. He doesn’t think so, because she’s right. He knows her. And while he’d loved that about her, that strength that never seemed to need anyone; it only makes him feel lonely now.

He goes home early that weekend, anticipating the conversations with Paul about what he’s learning, Henny’s delicious biscuits and Carrie’s childish prattle when she clings to his hands and refuses to let him out of her sight; but it is Cathy waiting on the porch for him. She waves, running down the steps to fling herself into his arms.

“You’re early,” she says, her words lost in his shirt collar.

“Should I not be?”

“Didn’t say that. It’s just that I had a bad week. Failed a test in school, and Madame Marisha chose to embarrass me in front of the class.

“ _And_ Julian,” she adds like an afterthought. Her face is still against his shoulder but he thinks she’s frowning; delicate features screwed into a pout. Chris sighs; he’d rather not have to hear more about Julian than he has to. Jealousy is ridiculous, and he knows it. But even when he was with Jay, he resented the thought that someone else would supplant him in Cathy’s affections. She is his sister, _only_ his sister forever more… and yet he will always love her. Always need her; and a small part of him hopes she feels the same way.

“So,” he teases, trying to make his voice sound cheerful enough to lighten both their spirits, “you just wanted someone to complain to about all that?” Cathy grumbles wordlessly, pulling away just enough that his arms tighten automatically to hold her closer until she relaxes against him.

“Can’t I just happy you’re here, and that you’re back earlier than usual? I miss you when you’re not here,” Cathy says softly, her words sounding like a confession. “You always make me feel better.”

The weight of her words settle on him, wrapping him in warmth. “I feel better when I see you too,” he admits. Cathy smells like roses and cream rinse when he nestles his cheek on the smooth silkiness of her hair; and their arms tighten around each other. 

He will miss Jay, he realizes, cradling his sister closer. Her intelligence and strength, her sharp triumphant grin when she beat him in school, their shared bond of knowledge and learning. But her independence meant that Jay never needed him. 

And maybe, that is what _he_ needs. Someone who will miss his presence when he’s gone… will need _him_ to feel complete.


	3. 1967: Williamsburg, Virginia

_Mary Beth_ is his home away from home; and Chris reckons that he has spent as much time in this little diner as he spends at the university. 

He even has his own booth –in the corner opposite the counter- that seems to always be kept free for him. No matter what is going on, there is always time before class to have a cup of coffee and their renowned buckwheat pancakes; and at the end of the day, exhausted and exhilarated, he tucks into a full plate of whatever the special for the day is while reviewing his class notes. At times, Chris feels like a constant fixture there. Part of the landscape, as much as the tan patterned walls and squeaky linoleum underfoot.

And if he belongs there, then so does she. Bethie Sinclair, whom the diner was named for, is the daughter of the owner. He thinks there has never been a time when he has come in and not seen her rushing about in her customary blue dress and sensible heels. She is an epitome of grace with her high cheekbones and delicate features, and her dark curls tumble haphazardly around her shoulders. Her skin is porcelain pale and unblemished, and the faint lines around her mouth and eyes show where care and gentle laughter have etched their ways into her very face.

Sometimes, Chris wonders if Bethie is why he comes in here. The food _is_ good, the location ideal; but something about her makes him feel welcome here. It is something in her eyes; wide and hazel, serene and accepting. As if here, he has found a place to belong.

She is older than him, by at least ten years, he thinks. And at first, her attitude toward him is almost maternal. She asks about his studies as she deftly serves coffee and settles his plates around the reams of notes he’s studying; but late one night when she thinks he looked lonely and unhappy, she sits for a moment to hold his hands loosely in her own.

“You must have things to do that I’m keeping you from. I’m really fine,” Chris says, meaning it with all his heart, but still not moving his hand away. Her fingertips are slightly rough, almost like a very fine sandpaper from all the work she does. Anything that needs doing at any moment -from serving to cooking to paperwork- seems to be Bethie’s domain. He knows that she is always considered to be the ‘owner’s daughter’, so there must be an actual owner but he has rarely seen him. Despite what she is called, it is only ever Bethie who is in control here.

“We’ve closed already, but you didn’t notice everyone leaving.” She smiles at him, and for the first time, he notices that the lights are out, the diner scrubbed and silent around them.

“And you’re not fine,” Bethie continues. “Won’t you tell me what’s wrong, Chris? You’ve not smiled at all since you’ve been here today.”

He hesitates, swallowing reflexively. “It’s my father’s birthday,” he says. “Or it would have been.”

She squeezes his hand gently. “How long ago is it that you lost him?”

“Years. And it’s not only his birthday today, but the anniversary of his death; he died on his way driving home to us. It’s been over ten years now… but I try not to think of how long.”

Cathy would know, he muses. Cathy would know exactly how long it’s been almost to the minute; at least he thinks she would? But maybe not. Cathy is travelling with Julian, dancing and living and performing; and he thinks, putting aside the past. He hopes she is, at any rate. Finally putting aside her revenge, her feelings of betrayal and focussing on what she has.

Usually, he would do the same. He would be positive, optimistic about what the future holds…

But today, he misses the life he could have had, _should_ have had. He misses the father he never got to say goodbye to, the father whose memory got warped beyond recognition from the realizations that came at Foxworth Hall. He misses the mother who slipped away from him. He misses the little girl Carrie had been before the attic squashed the joy from her, he misses the little brother he will never see again.

He even misses the annoyance of Cathy when she was young. The cry-baby Cathy Dollanganger is no longer the Catherine Doll he came to love. Still loves; even though he tries to respect her choice of Julian. Life changes everything, every decision and shadow. The Christopher Dollanganger in Pennsylvania would never have felt the way Chris Sheffield feels today for his sister; and despite himself, he can’t blame her that she has moved on and left him behind. 

Chris closes his eyes in defeat. Most days, he can remind himself that this is for the best. Julian can give Cathy something he never could; the career she dreams of, the stability and acclaim.

But today is a day for mourning what today he can’t forget. How his life could have been… and he can’t tell what expression is on his face, but Bethie moves so that she is no longer across from him, but sitting next to him in the booth. She puts her free arm around him, holding him to her; and he ducks his head down onto her shoulder, pressing his face against her neck as he cries.

“My mother was sick for years,” she says when he has finally calmed enough to only sniffle helplessly. “This was their place, almost more of their baby than I was. But when she fell ill, my father nearly abandoned it to take care of her; and he never had the heart to come back even when she was gone. I’ve been running it since I was seventeen, just trying to keep it going. It’s been seventeen years now. Half my life.”

“Why?” he asks curiously. She shrugs, her shoulder moving beneath his cheek, as her hands gently rub comforting circles on his back.

“Because it’s what they would have wanted, if either of them had been in the right state of mind to think about me. They’d want _Mary Beth_ to continue; and they’d want to know I was provided for.”

“They forced you to have to grow up too soon,” Chris says, angry on her behalf, momentarily forgetting what his own life had forced him into. “They made you an adult before you should’ve been one.”

“Everyone has to grow up eventually.” Bethie’s voice wavers slightly, the only sign that perhaps she isn’t as complacent as she pretends to be. “This isn’t the life I thought I’d have, but you make the most of what fate gives you. Good or bad.”

She gives his shoulders a final squeeze, but as she goes to move away he clings to her, reluctant to let go. And he isn’t sure of why he does it, but he brushes his lips softly against her neck. She freezes, and his arms come up around her, holding her tighter than she’d held him.

“What did you want?” he asks. “If you had to do your life again, what would you want?”

“Marriage.” Her voice is unsteady. “Marriage, children. A house with a white picket fence and roses in the back. No responsibility except the happiness and safety of my family.”

“You could have that.”

“I can’t. I’m too old for that, Chris. Who would want me?”

At thirty-four, she is older than him, but she is beautiful, close up. Wide eyes framed in thick dark lashes, a generously curved mouth and those high cheekbones. Her skin feels soft and fragile like silk beneath his lips, and she shudders as he presses a soft kiss right against where her dress meets her collarbone.

“I might,” he says recklessly.

“You’re just confused.” But she sounds uncertain, and he takes advantage of that, trailing kisses up her neck, nibbling softly on her ear and taking pleasure in her uneven breaths. “And you’re very young.”

“What does my age have to do with anything?” Chris asks. “What do physical years matter? It’s the experiences you have that shape you; and I assure you. Inside, I’m far older than you might believe.”

He never talks about the attic, if he can help it. He tries not to remember the days of loss and starvation; thinking only of the closeness of his siblings, the strength he and Cathy developed as a result. But he whispers enough of his story to Bethie for her to pull away from him, her eyes searching his face for the truth.

“You’ve never said,” she murmured, her hand coming up to cup his cheek. “I always sensed that you needed someone, that you were unhappy about something despite all your smiles. But I never thought it would be something like that…”

“Who would think of something like what I’ve told you?” Chris asks bitterly, right before she pulls his face to hers and kisses him full on the lips. It is a soft kiss, and a gentle one. There is comfort in what she is offering in this moment, but not desire… and yet he holds onto her, pulling her into him with an urgency that surprises himself. He has never thought of Bethie in this way, but now he can think of nothing else. What she might feel like in his arms. The warmth and compassion she exudes, like the security of home at the end of a long day. 

So he kisses her, fingers tugging at her curls to hold her close. She seems startled for a moment before her body responds; arching up against him, her mouth opening beneath his with ease. Their lips and tongues tangle together, hands hurriedly pulling off clothing. He knows that he is being rough, there is no finesse and delicacy here as he sucks and nibbles on each inch of her skin he exposes; but she moans in pleasure at his caresses, grasping greedily at him as she pulls him down onto her.

It feels like he is trying to lose himself in her. He has done this before, taken his pleasure with the girls who find his clean-cut blond handsomeness irresistible. Girls who seemed interchangeable in his mind, because none of them sparked anything in him besides a momentary lust.

But something about this, about her feels seems different. It is her care and concern for his wellbeing that perhaps he craves. The buried unhappiness beneath her cheerful demeanor that calls to him, her staunchness in moving forward despite whatever lay in her past. She writhes beneath him and he murmurs that he has her, how beautiful she is for him.

It is true; but there is still an abstract, analytical part of his mind thinking abstractly that what she is for him in this moment feels like acceptance and love and forever. It feels like she is giving him the stability he has lacked since leaving Gladstone. 

Once, he thought of Cathy in that way, as his centering force. But she has a life to lead, dreams to follow; and his are not enough to supplant what she wants for herself.

For his years of med school, his life is between the university and Mary Beth and Bethie. And he is happy… except that eventually, as his graduation nears and internship beckons, he comes to realize that stability is not always what he needs. The problem lies with him; Bethie is what she always seemed to be. The endlessly uncomplaining manager, the one always willing to put the needs of others before her own. As much as he’d craved that, as much as he loves that about her; he wonders sometimes if she can really be happy that her life is comprised of little more than work and him.

Because his life can not only be about her.

His life is medicine and studying and his future as a doctor. There is a promise he made to his father about fulfilling that dream, not to mention what he owes to Paul for the money and care lavished upon his education; and he knows that if he takes the easy road, staying with Bethie in the familiarity and comfort she has created for them, he will always feel resentful. As though he has failed, somehow, simply but not taking advantage of all the possibilities open to him.

He calls Cathy, because he knows. He has tried too hard to be responsible and trustworthy; but that faint streak of selfishness in his sister that he both loves and abhors will come shining through to save him. She will advise him by saying the things he thinks but would never verbalize for himself. 

“I’ve been offered an internship,” he says, fiddling with the phone cord.

“So why are you calling me? Won’t you take it?” He can picture his sister. Her breathing is steady, her voice strained; and he can tell that she is stretching. Multitasking, even as they talk.

“It’s too good to pass up,” he says nervously. “I’ve…things I’ll miss here, though. People, too.”

Cathy snorts, showing what she thinks of that statement. “I miss Carrie,” she says dismissively. “And Paul and Henny… and you. But Chris, with our lives, what was done to us? I think we’ve earned the right to be selfish if we need to be, if it’ll make up for what we lost during those years. Does it matter, if you’ll miss a few physical things? You’ll find something new to make up for it.”

“And people?”

“If they are important enough, you can come back to them.”

“You make them sound replaceable.”

“That’s not what I said, Chris. Do you think I’m replaceable?

“Not to me,” he says, without meaning to. He can hear her suck in her breath on the end of the line, and he hastens to correct that statement. “If only because sometimes I need to hear your type of common sense.”

She pauses. “You don’t usually say I have common sense.”

“Rational, then?”

“You don’t say I have that either.”

He grumbles good-naturedly down the phone. “Am I replaceable to you, Cathy?”

“Never.” Her answer is instantaneous. “But who has a relationship like we do?” 

There is a long pause. He can feel her thoughts racing, her wonder about how he still feels for her.

“The -people- you’ll miss?” Her voice is hesitant. “Is it a close relationship?”

“Sometimes,” he says truthfully. “But sometimes I wonder if it’s just loneliness. Or desperation. From both of us.”

There is a long pause, before she sighs.

“Chris,” and she sounds sad, “loneliness and desperation aren’t good things to base forever on.”

* * *

Because of who Bethie is, who she has always been, he isn’t surprised when she only smiles softly when he tells her he’s leaving in June.

“I thought you might,” she says simply. “I never thought I was the type of person you’d stay with.”

He is holding her hand, her fingers entwined with his. “You’re very special, Bethie. And I’ve loved you, loved our time together.”

“And I have too. But I think you’re the wrong sort of person for me. Too ambitious, too much to prove.” She is rationalizing, and he feels terrible but doesn’t know what to say. She must be hurt, she must be screaming inside; and he has no words to fix this.

“And,” she falters when he doesn’t speak, “I think we both know that I’m not right for you, either. I think you need someone who has dreams and goes for them. I’ll never be that sort of person… if I ever was, it’s too late for me to change now.” She ducks her head down, and he sees the strands of silver in her curls that he hadn’t noticed before. She is older than him, he’d always known that; but in this moment, their age difference is far more obvious.

She will do what she has always done, even when he is gone. She is calm and serene and complacent, no matter the good or bad in her life; she won’t fight it. And maybe, he should be with the type of person who does.


	4. 1970: Claremont, South Carolina

When Chris thinks about it later, Sarah Reeves crept into his life like a shadow. One day she hadn't been there at all; and then the next there was a sweet smile beneath a head of Titian hair, floral perfume and a sunny personality. It feels selfish to admit that at first he appreciated only her connections at the hospital and within that world… but in time, Sarah proves easy to love, for herself. Her devotion to him makes him feel adored; her girlish enthusiasm and breathless chatter amuse him. Her warm, maternal affection for Carrie and Jory is endearing and entirely understandable when she tells him -with a carefree smile to mask the pain in her eyes- about the death of her mother when she was young.

It seems a cycle in his life: the few girls he's cared about all have an intimate understanding of loss, no matter how it has changed them, what they were honed into as a consequence. Jay had been tough; Bethie, strong and resigned…. but Sarah is something else. He can feel something about her that calls to him, despite himself. A familiarity… and in the end, it is that sense which leads him to propose; without thinking too hard upon the words and the meaning of her acceptance.

And since all that happened, Chris thinks he has played his part to perfection. Devoted fiancée, enthusiastic groom-to-be. Cathy is not the only one in the family capable of hiding her innermost thoughts behind a pleasant mask; because no one, not even his sister knows how he truly feels. Chris is trapped inside a jail of his own making. From tomorrow, everything will change in his life. A new wife. A new family; calling Dr. Reeves Dad feels strange and foreign on his tongue because in his entire life, only one other man has ever worn that name.

For so long, he has tried to become someone else. Dr. Chris Sheffield. Handsome and charming and respectable… and now, on the brink of succeeding, was it crazy to miss who he’d been? Paul had enabled him to bury his past, and he’d been careful to keep it away from everyone. All of it… he hadn’t even told Sarah about Cory for years. 

_Yes_ , Chris concludes, sitting on the night before his wedding with a glass of whisky in his hands, _Sarah is easy to love_. Anyone would… but he’s not certain that he is included in that anyone. Too many things locked away in his mind. Secrets piled up on secrets. Child born of incest, a man capable of sin. He wonders, abstractly, if Sarah can ever understand that the man she is marrying is not the man he seems to be. Clean and wholesome and trustworthy.

It feels that tonight, shadowy ghosts from the past are clamoring in his head, begging him not to forget them. He wishes that he could. He wishes he could be the man Sarah thinks he is.

“I didn’t know that you drink whisky.” Cathy’s soft voice cuts into his morose thoughts, and Chris looks up to see his sister standing before him. Somehow, he is unsurprised she is here. The bond forged between them during those dark days in the attic will always mean that they are close; close enough to almost read each other’s thoughts.

“You don’t know everything about me,” he says, swirling the glass around, watching the light play off the amber liquid.

“Does Sarah?”

“Sarah doesn’t know everything about me either.”

Cathy accepts his words with a graceful nod, sinking down on the chair beside him. Her perfume washes over him; still the faint fragrance of roses that she’s always worn. It feels like home, pulling him in and giving the voices of the dead a further purchase on his mind.

“What did you tell her? About… about us?”

“What did you tell Julian? He was the one you chose to be your lawfully wedded husband.” 

“She'll be your wife,” Cathy reminds him; but she bites her lip and Chris can't help but feel pleased that her hands betray her, twisting nervously in her lap. He has picked his words deliberately to hurt and sting at her. His dark mood demands no less… the legacy of a lifetime together; taunting and laughter and teasing and love means that Cathy is part of him, despite how they may try to deny it. She understands him, as he does her. And because of that, they have always known how to hurt each other.

“Will she?” he asks suddenly. “Should she be?”

“Chris…”

“I’ve told her the same fictions,” he interrupts. “The ones we always say. Our parents died in an accident and we were adopted by Paul.”

Cathy nods slowly. "So you still haven’t told her the truth."

“Have you?” he challenged. “Ever?”

She looks away before shaking her head. “I don’t want pity or consolations that don’t mean anything. And Paul; he tried.” Her fingers are clutched together, and Chris puts down his glass, reaching for her, his hand engulfing her smaller one.

“There’s no one who would ever completely understand though,” she says. “Just us. And it feels sacred. Even Julian… I knew his faults, but I did love him, Chris. And he loved me… enough that I wish now that I could’ve been honest with him. He deserved to know that I was damaged; not the girl he thought I was. But I couldn’t ever say it. Maybe I didn’t love _him_ enough to tell him the truth.”

“You know, then, why I don’t think I can do this,” Chris says. He doesn’t mean to say these words, but they are forcing their way outward. “I don’t think I can be with someone I can’t be honest with.”

“But Sarah is a wonderful person. She’ll be a good wife and mother…” He can hear the uncertainty in Cathy’s voice. She is trying to convince him, even though she _knows_ exactly how he feels. Julian’s love hadn’t been enough for her. Sarah’s would never be enough for him. There was something missing in both of them that would never let them be appropriate mates for the survivors of the attic.

“She is a wonderful person,” Chris agrees. “And she will never understand me.”

They are kissing before she can say anything further, and Chris clings to her as though she is a lifeline. Cathy’s kiss tastes like goodbye; but he squeezes the softness of her breasts greedily between his palms, feeling her heartbeat quicken, the little moan in the back of her throat that she tries to smother even as she pulls him closer.

It is illicit and sloppy and utterly consuming, this kiss. In the small part of his mind still capable of rational thought, Chris knows that he has to end things. End them immediately so no one gets hurts; though he is still not certain who he is thinking of. The woman who could never completely know him; or the one who, right or wrong, seemed to possess everything he’d always needed. His mouth is firm against Cathy’s, his hand sliding beneath the silky hem of her negligee until he can draw his fingers against the wet warmth at the apex of her thighs.

He can’t remember what the other women in his life had felt like. If there had been this passionate, all-encompassing desire, made stronger by the years of longing… how could he ever have been with anyone else? How could have he have mistaken anything else for what he and Cathy shared? Chris looks down at her; dark eyelashes fluttering on flushed cheeks, rosy lips open in breathless sighs as she opens her legs wider for him, her hand encircling his wrist to force him to give her more, _more_.

“I can’t let you go,” Chris whispers suddenly. Cathy’s eyes snap open and stare into his; dark pupils dilated, drowning out the blue.

“You should.”

“Do you want me to?” He stills his hand, ignoring her whimper of protest. “Say it, Cathy. Say it, and end this.”

He never knows what she might have said. If her sisterly affection would’ve been enough to encourage him into marriage; knowing that one day, he may indeed be happy with Sarah. (Happy; though perhaps not happy enough.) Or if her need would’ve made her cling to him…

But in the end, the decision is taken from both their hands. As though God, the Grandmother's vicious, vindictive God looked down at the sinners entwined that night, laughing that they thought this could ever remain hidden.

* * *

There are no words to explain something like this. Chris tries again and again that night, cringing away from the betrayal and misery in Sarah’s eyes.

“I never meant you to know,” he says, aware that those words are even worse than his frantic apologies had been. “I didn’t tell you about my life, before we met. I didn’t know how…”

He opens his mouth to tell her everything. Willing, even, to hold no secrets back; because perhaps Sarah deserves them. She ought to know who and what he is, what drove him to be the man she'd walked in on, fondling his own sister in such ecstasy. But her face is hard; her voice, as she interrupts him, is bitter. 

“I think I understand enough. Or is it that I don't have a brother to understand why you might be drawn into...” She pauses, her face a pale green. “Sin. Perversion. I knew you were close, but…” Unconsciously, she clenches her hands into fists. He can see her fingernails cutting deep into her palms, almost drawing blood.

“Please,” Chris begs. “Please, listen… Once,” he says slowly, “there was a boy. He had a close family, and a good home; he had a life, and it was happy.

“Then, one thing at a time, it was taken from him. Every comfort. Every security; even just the freedom to walk outside in the sunshine and feel the air on his face. And when he lost everything, there was only one person left to trust. He couldn’t help loving her because she was everything he wasn't. She was what he needed to survive.”

Sarah raises her face to him, her lips trembling and eyes full of tears.

“Life isn’t a fairy tale,” she whispers. “You’re making that sound like it’s some sweet story, but… she’s your sister, Christopher. She’s your own _sister_ …

“Get out of here before I call Daddy and tell him why I’m not getting married tomorrow. He always thought you had a secret, you know.” Her voice is harsh, and now he realizes the tears are not sorrow, but anger. “But I’m the one who defended you and thought you were too wonderful to be true.”

“Sarah, please…” He reaches for her, but she cries when his fingers brush against her wrist, scrubbing her hand against her skirt as if she can wipe off his taint. He wants to ask her not to tell people, but the words freeze in his mouth at the look she bestows on him of purest loathing; before her eyes light with a malicious smile.

“Yes,” she says. “I think that will make things even. I’ll tell Daddy just what happened here tonight. And he’ll make sure everyone knows all about you, what you’re really like beneath your charming smiles.

“Goodbye, Christopher.” She stared coldly at him. “I will hate you until I die.”

* * *

In later years, when Chris thinks back about Sarah Reeves, he thinks that she swept into his life, from one moment to the next like a shadow. And that she had been easy to love, with a nagging sense of familiarity; even if there had seemed to be one small thing missing.

It puzzles him, as he and Cathy drive back home in silence. Just what it is about Sarah… In the moment before she walked away from him, he knew that her declaration that she would make sure that everyone knew his darkest secret wasn’t a lie. She would ensure that everyone knew… she would ensure he was blacklisted in the medical community, and their personal one.

“Do you hate me?” Cathy asks quietly, her voice wistfully breaking into his thoughts. Chris shrugs.

“Maybe I should.”

“But do you? Do you think Sarah might forgive you? If you said you’d never see me again?”

“No,” Chris says. “She won’t forgive. I realized what it is about her that I loved. I saw _you_ in her, Cathy.” He is happy that he is driving, his eyes on the road before them to avoid looking at his sister. He isn’t certain he wants to see what is in her eyes at that admission.

“Did you ever wonder,” he asks idly, “what might have happened if positions had been reversed? If Momma had been the one who died.”

“But she didn’t.”

“She didn’t. But how much Daddy loved you… what do you think you might have been like, if we’d been raised with him alone?”

Cathy is silent; but Chris knows that she understands his thinking. Sarah, when he first met her, was no doubt how Cathy would have turned out. No sullen anger or dreams of retribution in her head. Just a woman -enthusiastic, stubborn- with an unshaken assurance in her father and his love for her. But circumstances shape us all. They turned him from a trusting fourteen year old into the man he became, Cathy from a whining coward into Catherine Dahl, retired dancer and planner of revenge.

And together they have turned Sarah into who she will be, from this day forward. Chris shivers, remembering the look in her eyes that said, clear as day, that she has tasted of rage, of loathing; and she will never be the same again.

“You saw me in her,” Cathy says in a small voice. “And loved her because of that?”

“Yes,” Chris says. “I think I did. But not enough.”


	5. 1974: Fairfax, California

The kitchen is warm and bright in the early mornings before he leaves for work, and Chris sits, his cup of coffee frozen halfway to his lips as he watches her. Cathy hums Tchaikovsky beneath her breath, playfully bringing a foot up in coupe as she scrapes the spatula around the eggs; before doing a graceful dégagé and rising to her toes to bourrée and retrieve the toast.

It is an ordinary morning in their little household. One he never thought he'd have; and some days Chris is still confused by how easy it feels.

Once, like a lodestone, when he was alone he swung back to Cathy. When he was lonely and alone, when the nostalgia for what was lost overwhelmed him; he thought of her. Small slender body, long golden hair and infinite grace. The soul of a dreamer with a core of steel that balanced him like a mirror. She was dark, fierce anger when he was light enthusiasm; he was steadfast determination when she drifted and dreamed. They were each other's strengths in equal intensity to bolster the weaknesses.

But despite that, despite wistful wishes, he’d never thought that he might actually get her. Too much baggage between them. Too many lovers; hers and his.

He never wanted to love her. He'd tried -maybe not as hard as he should, but still he _had_ tried- to find love in the faces and bodies of other girls who had drifted through his life. And he could have been happy. Happy enough to survive.

But they'd all been missing something. And sometimes, Chris thinks that Cathy feels the same as he does, although she has never admitted it. He is afraid to ask for fear of ruining what they have here. He comes home to a beautiful house, two wonderful sons. Cathy with her smiles and frowns and tempers and affection; in his arms every day and his bed at night.

Their life is a happy one. It shouldn’t be, they have no right for it to be… yet he thinks that maybe, they both finally are.

“Breakfast,” Cathy sings out, sliding his plate in front of him. He catches her before she moves away, sliding his arm with ease around her waist.

“You look beautiful this morning,” says Chris. Cathy blushes prettily, looking charmingly girlish.

“You say that every morning,” she laughs.

“Because I always mean it.”

“And when I get old and fat?” Her tone is still far too teasing for his liking; and he pulls her down to him until he can kiss her. Soft lips on his. The fine silk of her hair against his fingers when he brings one hand up to cup her nape, holding her close as he trails kisses around the curve of her ear, down her neck.

“Your beauty is in who you are to me,” Chris murmurs, looking into her eyes. “And that will never change.”

There is always a flash in her eyes when he says that. Pain and sadness and unease, quickly buckled down in the next moment before she smiles at him. Her fingers slide through his hair, her thumb caressing his cheek affectionately.

“Everything you've ever needed?”

He smiles easily at her. They may be wrong; but still, they are so complete together that he knows he is right.

“And all in you.”


End file.
